Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very grateful to the Cathaoirleach for selecting this Commencement matter. As a member of a Government party, I should be able to be out in the constituency of Dublin South-Central lauding the fact the Government has moved on an apartment and duplex remediation scheme, that it has delivered on it with Cabinet approval for it on 18 January and that the codes of practice were published back in July to give guidelines to both owners' management companies, OMCs, of buildings and the fire regulations people in the local authorities. I should be incredibly proud of that and in one sense I very much am. Certainly, the current Minister has worked hard on this. When he was a member of the Opposition, he spoke about it and all that would be delivered when he became a Minister, if he got into government. The difficulty is the people who really need the money for this are not going to get it until at least 2024 and they are told that time and time again. The Minister has had multiple online briefings with people who are affected.There are more than 100,000 such accommodations, including apartments and duplexes, around the country and it therefore affects everybody's constituency. There are complexes where they are not able to do work at this moment in time because they just do not have the money. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and have been for quite some time now. They cannot come up with some of the bills. In the likes of Park West, the bill is for €68,000.

The Minister has spoken about emergency funding, but the problem is that there is no sign of the money. The line from the movies is “show me the money” but at this stage, we have to show them the money because people are living in dangerous buildings and dangerous accommodations. We could triage them, put them on a priority list and say that the most dangerous ones should be done first, but the Government still is not underwriting the cost of this. It will do so at some point in the future, but an emergency fund is needed between now and then.

If the code of practice is followed in the implementation of this, then we will have a reference point. There is therefore no reason works that are done in accordance with the code of practice could not be certified and funded in advance. The Government could enter into an arrangement with the banks to advance the money, knowing that the Government is underwriting it. We need that level of intervention and creative, outside-of-the-box thinking to ensure the money gets where it is needed.

Every weekend, there is a report of a fire somewhere in the country. We know that from our fire services around the country. It is normal for people to go out and tend to fires. Fires occur for very simple reasons. People are living in complexes that have had an engineer’s report and are on this list. For instance, in some of them in Dublin South Central, they cannot park in the basement. They cannot store their refuse in the basement car parks that are purpose-built for this because of the potential fire hazard. People are living in multi-unit accommodations and know they are on a list of defective apartments. They cannot use the underground car park or store their refuse in the complex. They have to be out on footpaths, yet there is no sign of the money needed to carry out that remediation. The regret I have is that this is defeat plucked from the jaws of victory when it comes to the Government taking action in this regard. We need a timeline, hence I am raising this Commencement matter today.